EBM Insights podcast series is a deep dive into current issues surrounding insurance and risk management in today’s ever-changing world.
This podcast discusses the importance of standard electrical equipment maintenance. Tom Dunnicliffe from Williams Electrical Service provides insight into the statutory requirements businesses need to comply with.
A transcript of the interview with Williams Electrical Service is below. The complete EBM Insights podcast series is available here.
Introduction:
In this podcast we talk with Tom Dunnicliffe from Williams Electrical Service about the importance of standard electrical equipment maintenance.
In particular, there are statutory requirements in place that every business needs to comply with.
00:00:00 Speaker 1 – Disclaimer
In this podcast, we have provided general advice only and not personal advice. In giving this advice we have not considered your personal circumstances.
00:00:13 Speaker 2 – Sandy Cattley (Senior Marketing Specialist, EBM Insurance & Risk)
Welcome to EBM Insights. In this podcast we are focusing on the importance of standard electrical equipment maintenance. In particular, there are statutory requirements in place that every business needs to comply with. Joining me is Tom Dunnicliffe, the Business Development Manager from Williams Electrical Service.
Williams Electrical Service was founded in WA in 1954 and work on projects including large scale electrical installations, reactive and preventative maintenance services, and fuel systems.
Thank you for joining me today, Tom.
00:00:46 Speaker 3 – Tom Dunnicliffe (Business Development Manager – Williams Electrical Service)
It’s great to be here, thank you for having me.
00:00:50 Speaker 2 – Sandy
Tom, as we’re talking about electrical safety, I thought I’d mention that although you are the BD Manager at Williams Electrical Service, you are also a qualified and experienced electrician.
00:01:00 Speaker 3 – Tom
Yes, that’s right. I’m a qualified electrician of almost 20 years now. As you may be able to tell from the accent I’m originally from the UK where I completed the Electro-Technical Certification Scheme and gained recognition as a Gold Card Electrician. Then in 2014 I moved over here to WA and completed my gap training to also qualify as an A Grade Electrician here.
00:01:28 Speaker 2 – Sandy
So, in September 2022, Building and Energy – part of the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, reported that over the last five years in WA alone there have been nearly three hundred reports of shocks received from direct connected equipment in places of employment.
What are your thoughts on this?
00:01:48 Speaker 3 – Tom
Well, the first thing I would say is that if anyone does actually experience an electric shock, you should immediately seek medical attention and contact their network operator for your area.
Now, interestingly, I think it was around 1/3 of those shocks you mentioned actually came from direct connected water heaters and this has led to some changes in the wiring rules where the RCD’s or safety switches as we call them are now required to be installed in switchboards, for direct connected equipment like this.
00:02:24 Speaker 2 – Sandy
Great, thank you.
So, can you explain the statutory requirements for electrical equipment maintenance? So, for example, what’s involved and the frequency of service required?
00:02:37 Speaker 3 – Tom
Yes, Yep, statutory requirements are mandatory. This means an organisation must comply. So, for businesses this is testing of your emergency and exit lighting and your RCD’s. Generally speaking, these tests are completed on a 6 monthly frequency. Your emergency and exits twice a year and your RCD’s on an alternating basis between full time testing in the first half of the year and a push button test in the latter half.
00:03:07 Speaker 2 – Sandy
OK, so do these requirements apply nationally or is it different in every state?
00:03:15 Speaker 3 – Tom
OK, while there are some differences between state licencing and framework, these statutory requirements are taken from the Australian Standards and so they apply nationally.
00:03:27 Speaker 2 – Sandy
OK, thank you.
Under current statutory requirements, what types of electrical equipment need to be maintained? Can you give some examples for businesses?
00:03:36 Speaker 3 – Tom
Yes, OK, from a statutory perspective, Australian Standard or AS3760 which was recently updated last year is a great resource and it features a table of indicative testing and inspection intervals for electrical equipment. So, what we’re talking about to give you an example; after Emergency and Exit testing has been completed, as a business owner you would need to have any failed fittings repaired or replaced to ensure the safety of your employees in the case of an emergency.
I guess on to everyone’s favourite; Testing and Tagging of portable electrical appliances. Now this is mandated for some industries, but not all examples being building, construction, and mining. This is because these industries are what’s known as hostile environments.
An appliance in a hostile environment could become damaged in the normal course of business. A good example of this is a power tool on a construction site.
00:04:40 Speaker 2 – Sandy
Because I guess they move around a lot?
00:04:44 Speaker 3 – Tom
Yes.
00:04:47 Speaker 2 – Sandy
So, Tom what would a best practice maintenance regime be for electrical equipment?
00:04:52 Speaker 3 – Tom
OK, a best practice regime actually goes a lot further than the statutory items, and it would depend on the electrical equipment your business has and a risk assessment of it.
So, a best practice or what we might call a reduced business risk regime would include tasks such as the test and tag, but for non-hostile environments – your average offices and places of work.
Some example items would be common kitchen appliances, fridges, and microwaves all the way through to your computers and monitors.
Now further tasks could include lighting inspections, both internally and externally and what this would do is reduce your security risk. You might move on to Air Circuit Breaker testing and even Lightning Protection Systems testing. This would be at the likes of a bigger scale, high rise building.
Best practice could also include the maintenance and testing of other electrical equipment you have such as UPS, battery backup, solar panels and standby generators if your business has any of these items.
Having a piece of electrical equipment in your business, such as a generator, and not maintaining it, well, that’s a bit like not servicing your car for several years and wondering why it won’t start?
00:06:27 Speaker 2 – Sandy
Very good analogy. So, are there any specific maintenance requirements from the insurance perspective.
00:06:35 Speaker 3 – Tom
Yes, the big one here is Thermographic Surveys. Approximately 20% of major fires are generated and caused by electrical faults.
While thermographic surveying of switchboards is not mandated under current standards, it is requested by a lot of insurance companies in an effort to reduce their clients exposure and avoid interruption to business activities.
00:07:02 Speaker 2 – Sandy
Can you provide us with a bit more detail on this?
00:07:07 Speaker 3 – Tom
OK yes, well, at the risk of boring everyone listening, I can explain what a thermographic survey is and why we do them.
A thermographic survey measures surface temperatures inside the switchboard by using infrared video and still cameras.
Now, a higher than normal temperature or hot spot could be indicative of a problem such as a loose connection, and this could be a potential fire hazard.
00:07:51 Speaker 2 – Sandy
So Tom, to close out this podcast, do you have any case studies you can take us through where a maintenance regime was not followed, and what the consequences were?
00:08:02 Speaker 3 – Tom
Yes well if you take go back to that generator I mentioned earlier and compared it with not servicing the car and it not starting, there is a case study where a business owner had a critical piece of infrastructure and a backup generator installation.
Now it was deemed so critical they were worried about switching things off and chose not to complete any functional maintenance of it, such as a building blackout test, which is the process of us actually simulating a main power failure. And this basically tests that the equipment will operate correctly and transfer over to generate the power.
Well, eventually, after some years of not maintaining the equipment one day they did lose power, and it didn’t function as intended and this resulted in business downtime.
There isn’t a big cost impost for completing these tasks. None of them are particularly expensive but they can be the difference between keeping your business compliant, safe and online.
00:09:07 Speaker 2 – Sandy
Thank you again to Tom Dunnicliffe from Williams Electrical Service for joining me today.
You can find out more about the types of services they provide at www.williamselectrical.com.au Please go take a look.
Don’t forget that our entire podcast series is available on Spotify plus we have links to each episode on ebm.com.au. Thank you.
